“There is a man who seems to have begun to haunt my pathway,” Baird said to Tom; “or perhaps it is Latimer’s pathway, for it is when Latimer is with me that I meet him. He is small and sharp-featured and unwholesome.”
“It sounds like Stamps,” laughed big Tom.
He related the story of Stamps and his herds. The herds had not gained the congressional ear as Mr. Stamps had hoped. He had described their value and the gravity of his loss to everyone who would listen to his eloquence, but the result had been painfully discouraging. His boarding-house had become a cheaper one week by week, and his blue jeans had grown shabbier. He had fallen into the habit of hanging about the entrances of public buildings and the street corners in the hope of finding hearers and sympathisers. His sharp little face had become haggard and more weasel-like than before. Baird recognised big Tom’s description of him at once.
“Yes, it must be Stamps,” he said. “What is the meaning of his interest in us? Does he think we can provide evidence to prove the value of the herds? What are you thinking of, De Willoughby?”
In fact, there had suddenly recurred to Tom’s mind a recollection of Sheba’s fifth birthday and the visit Mr. Stamps had made him. With something of a shock he recalled the shrewd meekness of his voice as he made his exit.
“It begins with a ‘L,’ Tom; it begins with a ‘L.’”
The need of money was merely the natural expression of Mr. Stamps’s nature. He had needed money when he was born, and had laid infant schemes to secure cents from his relatives and their neighbours before he was four years old. But he had never needed it as he did now. The claim for governmental restitution of the value of the daily increasing herds had become the centre of his being. His belief in their existence and destruction was in these days profound; his belief that he should finally be remunerated in the name and by the hand of national justice was the breath of life to him. He had at last found a claim agent whose characteristics were similar to his own, and, so long as he was able to supply small sums with regularity, this gentleman was willing to encourage him and direct him to fresh effort. Mr. Abner Linthicum, of Vermont, had enjoyed several successes in connection with two or three singular claims which he had “put through” with the aid of genius combined with a peculiar order of executive ability. They had not been large claims, but he had “put them through” when other agents had declined to touch them. In fact, each one had been a claim which had been fought shy of, and one whose final settlement had been commented upon with open derision or raised eyebrows.
“Yours is the kind of claim I like to take up,” he had said to his client in their first interview; “but it’s the kind that’s got to be engineered carefully, and money is needed to grease the wheels. But it’ll pay to grease them.”
It had needed money. Stamps had no large sums to give, but he could be bled by drops. He had changed his cheap boarding-place for a cheaper one, that he might be able to save a few dollars a week; he had left the cheaper one for one cheaper still for the same reason, and had at last camped in a bare room over a store, and lived on shreds of food costing a few cents a day, that he might still grease the wheels. Abner Linthicum was hard upon him, and was not in the least touched by seeing his meagre little face grow sharper and his garments hang looser upon his small frame.
“You’ll fat on the herds,” he would say, with practical jocularity, and Mr. Stamps grinned feebly, his thin lips stretching themselves over hungry teeth.
The little man burned with the fever of his chase. He sat in his bare room on the edge of his mattress—having neither bedstead nor chairs nor tables—and his fingers clutched each other as he worked out plans and invented arguments likely to be convincing to an ungrateful Government. He used to grow hot and cold over them.
“Ef Tom ’d hev gone in with me an’ helped me to work out that thar thing about Sheby, we mought hev made suthin’ as would hev carried me through this,” he said to himself more than once. He owed Tom a bitter grudge in a mild way. His bitterness was the bitterness of a little rat baulked of cheese.
He had kept safely what he had found in the deserted cabin, but, as the years passed, he lost something of the hopes he had at first cherished. When he had seen Sheba growing into a tall beauty he had calculated that her market value was increasing. A handsome young woman who might marry well, might be willing to pay something to keep a secret quiet—if any practical person knew the secret and it was unpleasant. Well-to-do husbands did not want to hear their wives talked about. When Rupert De Willoughby had arrived, Mr. Stamps had had a moment of discouragement.
“He’s gwine to fall in love with her,” he said, “but he’d oughter bin wealthier. Ef the De Willoughbys was what they’d usedter be he’d be the very feller as ’ud pay for things to be kept quiet. The De Willoughbys was allers proud an’ ’ristycratic, an’ mighty high-falutin’ ’bout their women folk.”
When the subject of the De Willoughby claim was broached he fell into feverish excitement. The De Willoughbys had a chance in a hundred of becoming richer than they had ever been. He took his treasure from its hiding-place—sat turning it over, gnawing his finger-nails and breathing fast. But treasure though he counted it, he gained no clue from it but the one he had spoken of to Tom when he had cast his farewell remark to him as he closed the door.
“Ef there’d hev been more,” he said. “A name ain’t much when there ain’t nothin’ to tack on to it. It was curi’s enough, but it’d hev to be follered up an’ found out. Ef he was only what he ’lowed to be—’tain’t nothin’ to hide that a man’s wife dies an’ leaves a child. I don’t b’lieve thar wasn’t nothin’ to hide—but it’d hev to be proved—an’ proved plain. It’s mighty aggravatin’.”
One night, seeing a crowd pouring into a hall where a lecture was to be delivered, he had lingered about the entrance until the carriage containing the lecturer drove up. Here was something to be had for nothing, at all events—he could have a look at the man who was making such a name for himself. There must be something in a man who could demand so much a night for talking to people. He managed to get a place well to the front of the loitering crowd on the pavement.
The carriage-door was opened and a man got out.
“That ain’t him,” said a bystander. “That’s Latimer. He’s always with him.”
The lecturer descended immediately after his companion, but Stamps, who was pushing past a man who had got in front of him, was displaying this eagerness, not that he might see the hero of the hour, but that he might look squarely at the friend who had slightly turned his face.
“Gosh!” ejaculated the little hoosier, a minute later. “I’d most swear to him.”
He was exasperatedly conscious that he could not quite have sworn to him. The man he had seen nineteen years before had been dressed in clumsily made homespun; he had worn his black hair long and his beard had been unshaven. Nineteen years were nineteen years, and the garb and bearing of civilisation would make a baffling change in any man previously seen attired in homespun, and carrying himself as an unsociable hoosier.
“But I’d most sw’ar to him—most.” Stamps went through the streets muttering, “I’d most swar!”
It was but a few days later that Latimer saw him standing on a street corner staring at him as he himself approached. It was his curious intentness which attracted Latimer. He did not recognise his face. He had not seen him more than once in the days so long gone by, and had then cast a mere abstracted glance at him. He did not know him again—though his garments vaguely recalled months when he had only seen men clothed in jeans of blue, or copperas brown. He saw him again the next day, and again the next, and after that he seemed to chance upon him so often that he could not help observing and reflecting upon the eager scrutiny in his wrinkled countenance.
“Do you see that man?” he remarked to Baird. “I come upon him everywhere. Do you know him?”
“No. I thought it possible you did—or that he recognised one of us—or wanted to ask some question.”
After his conversation with big Tom De Willoughby, Latimer heard from Baird the story of the herds and their indefatigable claimant.
“He comes from the Cross-roads?” said Latimer. “I don’t remember his face.”
“Do you think,” said Baird, rather slowly, “that he thinks he remembers yours?”
A week passed before Latimer encountered him again. On this occasion he was alone. Baird had gone South to Delisleville in the interests of the claim. He had unexpectedly heard rumours of some valuable evidence which might be gathered in a special quarter at this particular moment, and had set out upon the journey at a few hours’ notice.
Stamps had passed two days and nights in torment. He had learned from Mr. Linthicum that his claim had reached one of the critical points all claims must pass. More money was needed to grease the wheels that they might carry it past the crisis safely. Stamps had been starving himself for days and had gone without fire for weeks, but the wheels had refused to budge for the sum he managed to produce. He was weak, and so feverish with anxiety and hunger that his lips were cracked and his tongue dry to rasping.
“It’s all I kin scrape, Linthicum,” he said to that gentleman. “I kin get a few dollars more if Minty kin sell her crop o’ corn an’ send me the money—but this is every cent I kin give ye now. Won’t it do nothin’?”
“No, it won’t,” answered the claim agent, with a final sort of shrug. “We’re dealing with a business that’s got to be handled well or it’ll all end in smoke. I can’t work on the driblets you’ve been bringing me—and, what’s more, I should be a fool to try.”
“But ye wouldn’t give it up!” cried Stamps, in a panic. “Ye couldn’t throw me over, Linthicum!”
“There’s no throwing over about it,” Linthicum said. “I shall have to give the thing up if I can’t keep it going. Money’s got to be used over a claim like this. I have had to ask men for a thousand dollars at a time—and the thing they were working was easier to be done than this is.”
“A thousand dollars!” cried Stamps. He grew livid and a lump worked in his throat, as if he was going to cry. “A thousand dollars ’ud buy me and sell me twice over, Mr. Linthicum.”
“I’m not asking you for a thousand dollars yet,” said Linthicum. “I may have to ask you for five hundred before long—but I’m not doing it now.”
“Five hundred!” gasped Stamps, and he sat down in a heap and dropped his damp forehead on his hands.
That night, as Latimer entered the house of an acquaintance with whom he was going to spend the evening, he caught sight of the, by this time, familiar figure on the opposite side of the street.
The night was cold and damp, and rain was falling when the door closed behind him. He heard it descending steadily throughout the evening, and more than once the continuance of the downpour was commented upon by some member of the company. When the guests separated for the night and Latimer turned into the street again, he had scarcely walked five yards before hearing a cough; he cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the small man in blue jeans. The jeans were wet and water was dropping from the brim of the old felt hat. The idea which at once possessed his mind was that for some mysterious reason best known to himself the wearer had been waiting for and was following him. What was it for? He turned about suddenly and faced the person who seemed so unduly interested in his actions.
“Do you want to speak to me?” he demanded.
This movement, being abrupt, rather upset Mr. Stamps’s calculations. He came to a standstill, looking surprised and nervous.
“Thar ain’t no harm done,” he said. “I aimed to find out whar ye lived.”
“Have you been waiting for me to come out of the house?” asked Latimer, feeling some curiosity.
Stamps admitted that he had, the admission being somewhat reluctant, as if he felt it might commit him to something. Having so far betrayed himself, however, he drew something nearer, with a suggestion of stealthiness.
“Ye’re mighty like a man I once knowed,” he said. “Yer powerful like him. I never seed two men more liker each other.”
“Where did he live when you knew him?” Latimer enquired, the wretched, dank little figure suddenly assuming the haunting air of something his eye must have rested on before.
“I seen him in North Ca’llina. He did not live thar—in the way other folks did. He was jest stayin’. I won’t keep ye standin’ in the rain,” insinuatingly. “I’ll jest walk along by ye.”
Latimer walked on. This dragged him back again, as other things had done once or twice. He did not speak, but strode on almost too rapidly for Stamps’s short legs. The short legs began to trot, and their owner to continue his explanations rather breathlessly.
“He warn’t livin’ thar same as other folks,” he said. “Thar was suthin’ curi’s about him. Nobody knowed nothin’ about him, an’ nobody knew nothin’ about his wife. Now I come to think of it, nobody ever knowed his name—but me.”
“Did he tell it to you?” said Latimer, rigidly.
“No,” with something verging on a chuckle, discreetly strangled at its birth. “Neither him nor his wife was tellin’ things just then. They was layin’ mighty low. She died when her child was borned, an’ he lit out right away an’ ain’t never been heern tell of since.”
Latimer said nothing. The rain began to fall more heavily, and Mr. Stamps trotted on.
“’Lowin’ for store clothes an’ agein’,” he continued, “I never seen two fellers favour each other as you two do. An’ his name bein’ the same as yourn, makes it curi’ser still.”
“You are getting very wet,” was Latimer’s sole comment.
“I got wet to the skin long afore you come out that house where ye was,” said Mr. Stamps; “but I ’low to find out whar ye live.”
“I live about a quarter of a mile from here,” said Latimer. “The brick house with the bay windows, opposite the square. Number 89.”
“I’d rather see ye in,” replied Stamps, cautiously.
“I might go into a house I do not live in,” returned Latimer.
“Ye won’t. It’s too late. Ain’t ye gwine to say nothin’, Mr. Latimer?”
“Sheby’s good-lookin’ gal,” Stamps said. “Tom’s done well by her. Ef they get their claim through they’ll be powerful rich. Young D’Willerby he’s mightily in love with her—an’ he wouldn’t want no talk.”
“There is the house I live in at present,” said Latimer, pointing with his umbrella. “We shall be there directly.”
“Ministers don’t want no talk neither,” proceeded Stamps. “Ef a minister had made a slip an’ tried hard to hide it an’ then hed it proved on him he wouldn’t like it—an’ his church members wouldn’t like it—an’ his high class friends. There’d be a heap er trouble.”
“Number 89,” said Latimer. “You see I was speaking the truth. This is the gate; I am going in.”
His tone and method were so unsatisfactory and unmoved that—remembering Abner Linthicum—Stamps became desperate. He clutched Latimer’s arm and held it.
“It’d be worth money fur him to git safe hold of them letters. Thar was two on ’em. I didn’t let on to Tom. I wasn’t gwine to let on to him till I found out he’d go in with me. Them as knowed the man they was writ by ’ud be able to see a heap in ’em. They’d give him away. Ye’d better get hold of ’em. They’re worth five hundred. They’re yourn—ye wrote ’em yourself. Ye ain’t jest like him—ye’re him—I’ll sw’ar to ye!”
Latimer suddenly saw his mother’s mild New England countenance, with its faded blue eyes. He remembered the hours he had spent telling her the details of the sunny days in Italy, where Margery had lain smiling in the sunset. He looked down the long wet street, the lamps gleaming on its shining surface. He thought of Baird, who would not return until the day on which he was to deliver a farewell lecture before leaving Washington. He recalled his promptness of resource and readiness for action. If Baird were but in the room above in which the light burned he would tell him! His mind seemed to vault over all else at this instant—to realise the thing which it had not reached at the first shock. He turned on Stamps.
“You say there were letters?” he exclaimed, forgetting his previous unresponsiveness.
“Two. Not long ’uns, an’ wrote keerful—without no name. But they say a heap. They was wrote when he had to leave her.”
Latimer’s heart seemed physically to turn over in his side. He had never known she had had a line of handwriting in her possession. This must be some scrap of paper, some last, last words she clung to with such anguish of desperation that she could not tear herself from them, and so had died leaving them in their secret hiding-place. The thought was a shock. The effort it cost him to regain his self-control was gigantic. But he recovered his outward calm.
“You had better go home and change your clothing,” he said, as coldly as he had spoken before. “You are not a young man or a strong one, and you may kill yourself. You are making a mistake about me; but if you will give me your address I will see you again.”
“I thort ye would—mebbe,” said Stamps. “I thort mebbe ye would. They’re worth it.”
And he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper with a stump of a pencil—producing both rapidly from his pocket—and thrusting it into Latimer’s hand, trotted away contentedly down the long wet street.
As he entered his rooms, Latimer glanced round at Baird’s empty chair and wished he had found him sitting in it. He walked over to it and sat down himself—simply because it was Baird’s chair and suggested his presence. Latimer knew how he would have turned to look at him as he came in, and that he would at once have known by instinct that the old abyss had been re-opened.
“If he were here,” he thought, “he would tell me what to do.”
But he knew what he was going to do. He must buy the little hoosier’s silence if it was to be bought. He should see the letters. Through all those months she had hidden them. He could imagine with what terror. She could not bear to destroy them, and yet he knew there must have been weeks she did not dare to go near their hiding-place. They must have been concealed in some cranny of the cabin. How she must have shuddered with dread when he had accidentally approached the spot where they lay concealed. He recalled now that several times he had been wakened from his sleep in the middle of the night by hearing her moving about her room and sobbing. She had perhaps crept out of her bed in the darkness to find these scraps of paper, to hold them in her hands, to crush them against her heart, to cover them with piteous kisses, salt with scalding tears.
On one such night he had risen, and, going to the closed door, had spoken to her through it, asking her if she was ill.
“No, no, Lucien,” she had cried out, “but—but I am so lonely—so lonely.”
She had told him the next day that the sound of the wind soughing in the pines had kept her from sleep, and she had got up because she could not bear to be still and listen.
He had known well what she meant by her desolate little answer to him. She had been a beloved thing always. As a child her playmates had loved her, as a school-girl she had won the hearts of companions and teachers alike. Nature had endowed her with the brightness and sweetness which win affection. The smile in her eyes wakened an answer even in the look of passing strangers. Suddenly all had changed. She was hidden in the darkness, crushed and shamed, an outcast and a pariah—a thing only to be kept out of sight. Sometimes, after she had been sitting lost in thought, Latimer had seen her look up bewildered, glance at her little, deformed body, and sit white and trembling.
“Everything is different,” she panted out once. “It is as if all the world was black. It is—because—because I am black!”
Latimer had made no effort to wring from her the name she had prayed to be allowed to hide; yet he had often wondered that in some hysteric moment it had not escaped her—that mere helpless anguish did not betray her into uttering some word or phrase which might have served as a clue. But this she had never done, and between them there had been built a stone wall of silence. Yet, in spite of it, he had known that her young heart was broken with love for this nameless traitor—a love which would not die. He had seen it in the woe of her eyes, in the childlike longing of her look when she sat and gazed out over the wild beauty of the land, thinking she was unobserved. In his own soul there had been black, bitter hate, but in hers only loneliness and pain.
There came back to him—and he sprang up and ground his teeth, pacing the floor as he remembered it—a night when she had wandered out alone in the starlight, and at last he had followed her and found her—though she did not know he was near—standing where the roof of pine-trees made a darkness, and as he stood within four feet of her he had heard her cry to the desolate stillness:
“If I could see you once! If I could see you once—if I could touch you—if I could hear you speak—just once—just once!”
And she had wailed it low—but as a starving child might cry for bread. And he had turned and gone away, sick of soul, leaving her.
He had told this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emotion, and Latimer had known that he did not speak because he could not.
The letters were written with caution, Stamps had said, and the mention of names had been avoided in them; and, though he ground his teeth again as he thought of this, he realised that the knowledge brought by a name would be of no value to him. Long ago he had said to big Tom in the cabin on the hillside: “If ever we meet face to face knowing each other, I swear I will not spare him.” Spare him? Spare him what? What vengeance could he work which would wipe out one hour of that past woe? None. He had grown sick to death in dwelling with the memories he could not bury. He had been born cursed by the temperament which cannot outlive. There are such. And it was the temperament to which vengeance brings no relief. No; if they two met face to face, what words could be said—what deeds could be done? His forehead and hands grew damp with cold sweat as he confronted the despair of it.
“Better that I should not know his name,” he cried. “Better that we should never meet. Pray God that he is dead; pray God the earth does not hold him.”
The man who had followed him had plainly but one purpose, which was the obtaining of money. He looked as if he needed it directly. He would go to him and pay him what he asked and get the papers. They must be in no other hands than his own. When he had them, Baird and himself would destroy them together, and that would be the end.
He encountered no difficulties when he went in search of the address Stamps had given him. The room he had directed him to was over a small store on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue. When he entered it he saw at once that the man whose circumstances reduced him to living in it must be one whose need of money was great indeed. It was entirely unfurnished, except for a mattress lying on the floor, and Stamps was stretched upon it, coughing and feverish.
“Come in,” he said. “I knowed ye’d be here purty soon. Thar ain’t no chair to ax ye to set down in.”
“I do not want to sit,” said Latimer. “You are ill. You caught cold last night.”
“I s’pose I did, durn it,” answered Stamps. “I got drenched to the skin, an’ I hadn’t nothin’ dry to put on when I got home. But I’d seen ye—an’ told ye what I’d ’lowed to tell ye.”
“Where are the papers you spoke of?” Latimer asked.
Stamps’s feverish lips stretched themselves in an agreeable smile.
“They ain’t yere,” he answered; “an’ they won’t be yere till I’ve got the pay fur ’em. Ef thar was names in ’em they’d cost ye a heap more than five hundred dollars—an’ they’d cost ye more anyhow ef I hadn’t a use for that five hundred jest this particular time.”
“Where are they?” enquired Latimer. He meant to waste no words.
“They’re in North Ca’lliny,” answered the little mountaineer, cheerfully. “An’ I’ve got a woman thar es’ll send ’em when I want ’em.”
“She may send them when you wish.”
Stamps fell into a paroxysm of coughing, clutching his side.
“Will ye give five hundred?” he panted when it was over.
“Yes.”
“Ye want ’em pretty bad, do ye?” said Stamps, looking at him with a curiosity not untinged with dubiousness. He was sharp enough to realise that, upon the whole, his case was not a strong one.
“I don’t want them for the reason you think I want them for,” Latimer replied; his voice was cold and hard, and his manner unpromisingly free from emotion or eagerness. “I want them for a reason of my own. As for your pretence of recognising me as a man you have seen before, go out into the street corners and say what you choose. My friends know how and where my life has been spent, and you are shrewd enough to know how far your word will stand against mine. If you need the money now, you had better produce what you have to sell.”
“I could get ye mightily talked about,” said Stamps, restlessly.
“Try it,” answered Latimer, and turned as if to walk out of the room. He knew what he was dealing with, and saw the fevered cupidity and fear in the little, shifting eyes.
Stamps struggled up into a sitting posture on his mattress and broke forth into coughs again.
“Come back yere,” he cried between gasps; “ye needn’t ter go.”
Latimer paused where he stood and waited until the fit of coughing was over; and Stamps threw himself back exhausted. His shifty eyes burned uncannily, his physical and mental fever were too much for him. Linthicum had just left him before Latimer arrived, and upon the production of five hundred dollars rested the fate of the claim for the herds.
“Ef ye’ll bring the money—cash down—next Saturday,” he said, “I’ll give ye the papers. I’ll hev ’em yere by then. When ye’ve got ’em,” with the agreeable grin again, “ye kin go to yer friend’s far’well lecture easy in ye mind. Ye wouldn’t be likely to go to many of ’em ef he knowed what I could tell him. He’s powerful thick with Tom D’Willerby and Sheby. They think a heap of him. Tom must hev guessed what I’ve guessed, but he don’t want no talk on accounts o’ Sheby. Tom knows which side his bread’s buttered—he ain’t nigh as big a fool as he looks.”
Latimer stood still.
“Next Saturday?” was his sole response. “In the meantime, I should advise you to send for the doctor.”
He left him coughing and catching at his side.
During this week Judge Rutherford’s every hour was filled with action and excitement. He had not a friend or acquaintance in either House whom he did not seek out and labour with. He was to be seen in the lobby, in the corridors, in committee-rooms, arguing and explaining, with sheafs of papers in his hands and bundles of documents bulging out of his pockets. He walked down the avenue holding the arm of his latest capture, his trustworthy countenance heated by his interest and anxiety, his hat thrust on the back of his head. “There’s got to be justice done,” he would protest. “You see, justice has got to be done. There’s no other way out of it. And I’d swear there ain’t a man among you who doesn’t own up that it is justice, now all this evidence has been brought together. The country couldn’t be responsible for throwing the thing over—even till another session. Everything’s in black and white and sworn to and proved—and the papers Baird has sent in clinch the whole thing. Now just look here—” And he would repeat his story and refer to his documents, until even the indifferent succumbed through exhaustion, if not conviction.
He appeared at Dupont Circle two or three times a day, always fevered with delighted hope, always with some anecdote to relate which prognosticated ultimate triumph. If he could not find anyone else to talk to he seized upon Miss Burford or Uncle Matt and poured forth his news to them. He wrote exultant letters to Jenny, the contents of which, being given to Barnesville, travelled at once to Talbot’s Cross-roads and wakened it to exhilarated joyfulness, drawing crowds to the Post-office and perceptibly increasing the traffic on the roads from the mountains to that centre of civilised social intercourse.
“Tom’s a-gwine to win his claim,” it was said. “Judge Rutherford’s walkin’ it right through for him. Tom’ll be way ahead of the richest man in Hamlin. Sheby’ll be a hairest. Lordy! what a sight it’ll be to see ’em come back. Wonder whar they’ll build!”
In Washington it had begun to be admitted even by the reluctant that the fortunes of the De Willoughby claim seemed to have taken a turn. Members of substantial position discussed it among themselves. It was a large claim, and therefore a serious one, but it had finally presented itself upon an apparently solid foundation.
“And it is the member from the mountain districts, and the old negro, and the popular minister who will have carried it through if it passes,” said Senator Milner to his daughter. “It is a monumental thing at this crisis of affairs—a huge, unpopular claim on a resenting government carried through by persons impelled solely by the most purely primitive and disinterested of motives. An ingenuous county politician, fresh from his native wilds, works for it through sheer prehistoric affection and neighbourliness; an old black man—out of a story-book—forges a powerful link of evidence for mere faithful love’s sake; a man who is a minister of the gospel, a gentleman and above reproach, gives to its service all his interest, solely because he cherishes an affectionate admiration for the claimants. Nobody has laboured with any desire for return. Nobody has bargained for anything. Nobody would accept anything if it was offered to them. The whole affair has been Arcadian.”
“Will it be decided for the De Willoughbys—will it?” said Mrs. Meredith.
“Yes,” answered the Senator; “I think it will. And I confess I shall not advance any objections.”
Meeting big Tom on the avenue, Ezra Stamps stopped him.
“Tom,” he wheezed, hoarsely, “I heern tell you was likely ter git yer claim through.”
“There are times when you can hear that about almost any claim,” answered Tom. “What I’m waiting for is to hear that I’ve got it through.”
Stamps gnawed his finger-nails restlessly.
“Ye’re lucky,” he said; “ye allus was lucky.”
“How about the herds?” said Tom.
Stamps gave him an agonised look.
“Hev ye ever said anything agen me, Tom—to any man with inflooence? Hev ye, now? ’Twouldn’t be neighbourly of ye if ye hed—an’ we both come from the Cross-roads—an’ I allus give ye my custom. Ye won’t never go agen me, will ye, Tom?”
“I’ve never been asked any questions about you,” Tom said. “Look here, you had better go to some hospital and ask to be taken in. What are you walking about the street for in that fix? You can scarcely breathe.”
“I’m a-gwine to walk about until Saturday,” answered Stamps, with a grin. “I’m lookin’ arter my own claim—an’ Abner Linthicum. Arter Saturday I’ll lie up for a spell.”
“You’d better do it before Saturday,” Tom remarked as he left him.
Stamps stood and watched him walk away, and then turned into a drug-store and bought a cheap bottle of cough mixture. He was passing through the early stages of pneumonia, and was almost too weak to walk, but he had gone from place to place that morning like a machine. Linthicum had driven him. So long as he was employed in badgering other men he was not hanging about the agent’s office. Linthicum was not anxious that he should be seen there too frequently. After the payment of the five hundred dollars there would be no more to be wrung from him, and he could be dropped. He could be told that it was useless to push the claim further. Until the five hundred was secured, however, he must be kept busy. Consequently, he went from one man to the other until he could walk no more. Then he crawled back to his room and sent a note to Latimer.
“I cayn’t git the papers tel Saturday afternoon. Ef ye bring the money about seven ye ken hev them. ’Tain’t no use comin’ no earlier.”
Latimer found the communication when he returned to his rooms in the evening. He had been out on business connected with Baird’s final lecture. It was to be a special event, and was delivered in response to a general request. A building of larger dimensions than the hall previously used had been engaged. The demand for seats had been continuously increasing. The newspaper and social discussion of the prospects of the De Willoughby claim had added to the interest in Baird. This brilliant and popular man, this charming and gifted fellow, had felt such a generous desire to assist the claimants that he had gone South in the interest of their fortunes. He had been detained in Delisleville and could barely return in time to appear before his audience.
The enthusiasm and eagerness were immense. Every man who had not heard him felt he must hear him now; everyone who had heard him was moved by the wish to be of his audience again. Latimer had been besieged on all sides, and, after a hard day, had come home fagged and worn. But he was not worn only by business interviews, newspaper people, and applicants for seats which could not be obtained. He was worn by his thoughts of the past days, by his lack of Baird’s presence and his desire for his return. His influence was always a controlling and supporting one. Latimer felt less morbid and more sane when they were together.
This same night Senator Milner and Judge Rutherford called in company at the house near the Circle. When Uncle Matt opened the door for them Judge Rutherford seized his hand and shook it vigorously. The Judge was in the mood to shake hands with everybody.
“Uncle Matt,” he said, “we’re going to get it through, and in a week’s time you’ll be a rich man’s servant.”
Matt fled back to Miss Burford trembling with joy and excitement.
“Do ye think we is gwine t’rough, ma’am?” he said. “D’ye think we is? Seems like we was the Isrilites a-crossin’ the Red Sea, an’ the fust of us is jest steppin’ on de sho’. Lordy, Miss Burford, ma’am, I don’t know how I’se gwine to stan’ dat great day when we is th’ough, shore enuff. Wash‘n’ton city ain’t gwine be big enuff to hol’ me.”
“It will be a great day, Uncle Matthew,” replied Miss Burford, with elated decorum of manner. “The De Willoughby mansion restored to its former elegance. Mr. Thomas De Willoughby the possessor of wealth, and the two young people—” She bridled a little, gently, and touched her eyes with her handkerchief with a slight cough.
“When Marse De Courcy an’ Miss Delia Vanuxem was married, dar was people from fo’ counties at de infar,” said Matt. “De fust woman what I was married to, she done de cookin’.”
Senator Milner was shaking hands with big Tom upstairs. He regarded him with interest, remembering the morning he had evaded an interview with him. The little room was interesting; the two beautiful young people suggested the atmosphere of a fairy story.
“You are on the verge of huge good fortune, I think, Mr. De Willoughby,” he said. “I felt that I should like to come with Rutherford to tell you that all is going very well with your claim. Members favour it whose expression of opinion is an enormous weight in the balance. Judge Rutherford is going to speak for you—and so am I.”
Judge Rutherford shook Tom’s hand rather more vigorously than he had shaken Matt’s. “I wish to the Lord I was an orator, Tom,” he said. “If I can’t make them listen to me this time I believe I shall blow my brains out. But, what with Williams, Atkinson, and Baird, we’ve got things that are pretty convincing, and somehow I swear the claim has begun to be popular.”
When the two men had gone the little room was for a few moments very still. Each person in it was under the influence of curiously strong emotion. Anxious waiting cannot find itself upon the brink of great fortune and remain unmoved. Some papers with calculations worked out in them lay upon the table, and big Tom sat looking at them silently. Sheba stood a few feet away from him, her cheeks flushed, light breaths coming quickly through her parted lips. Rupert looked at her as youth and love must look at love and youth.
“Uncle Tom,” he said, at last, “are you thinking of what we shall do if we find ourselves millionaires?”
“No,” answered Tom.
His eyes rested on the boy in thoughtful questioning.
“No; I’ll own I’m not thinking of that.”
“Neither am I,” said Rupert. He drew nearer to Sheba. “It would be a strange thing to waken and find ourselves owners of a fortune,” he said. “We may waken to find it so—in a few days. But there is always a chance that things may fail one. I was thinking of what we should do if—we lose everything.”
Sheba put out her slim hand. She smiled with trembling lips.
“We have been across the mountain,” she said. “We came together—and we will go back together. Will you go back with us, Rupert?”
He took her in his strong young arms and kissed her, while Tom looked on.
“That is what I was thinking,” he cried; “that it does not matter whether we win the claim or lose it. The house is gone and the store is gone, but we can add a room to the cabin in Blair’s Hollow—we can do it ourselves—and I will learn to plough.”
He dropped on one knee like a young knight and kissed her little, warm, soft palm.
“If I can take care of you and Uncle Tom, Sheba,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Yes, I will marry you,” she answered. “We three can be happy together—and there will always be the spring and the summer and the winter.”
“May she marry me, Uncle Tom,” Rupert asked, “even though we begin life like Adam and Eve?”
“She shall marry you the day we go back to the mountains,” said Tom. “I always thought Adam and Eve would have had a pretty fair show—if they had not left the Garden of Eden behind them when they began the world for themselves. You won’t have left it behind you. You’ll find it in the immediate vicinity of Talbot’s Cross-roads.”
The facts in detail which the Reverend John Baird had journeyed to Delisle County in the hope of being able to gather, he had been successful in gaining practical possession of. Having personal charm, grace in stating a case, and many resources both of ability and manner, he had the power to attract even the prejudiced, and finally to win their interest and sympathies. He had seen and conversed with people who could have been reached in no ordinary way, and having met them had been capable of managing even their prejudices and bitterness of spirit. The result had been the accumulation of useful and convincing evidence in favour of the De Willoughbys, though he had in more than one instance gained it from persons who had been firm in their intention to give no evidence at all. This evidence had been forwarded to Washington as it had been collected, and when Baird returned to the Capital it was with the knowledge that his efforts had more than probably put the final touches to the work which would gain the day for the claimants.
His train was rather late, and as it drew up before the platform he glanced at his watch in some anxiety. His audience for the lecture must already have begun to turn their faces toward the hall in which the evening’s entertainment was to be held. He had hoped to reach his journey’s end half an hour earlier. He had wanted a few minutes with Latimer, whose presence near him had become so much a part of his existence, that after an absence he felt he had lacked him. He took a carriage at the depot and drove quickly to their rooms. They were to leave them in a day or two and return to Willowfield. Already some of their possessions had been packed up. The sitting-room struck him as looking a little bare as he entered it.
“Is Mr. Latimer out,” he asked the mulatto who brought up his valise.
“Yes, sir. He was called out by a message. He left a note for you on the desk.”
Baird went to the desk and found it. It contained only a few lines.
“Everything is prepared for you. The audience will be the best you have had at any time. I have been sent for by the man Stamps. He is ill of pneumonia and wishes to deliver some letters to me. I will be with you before you go on the platform.”
Since he had left Washington, Baird had heard from Latimer but once and then but briefly. He had felt that his dark mood was upon him, and this reference to letters recalled the fact.
“Stamps is the little man with the cattle claim,” he commented to himself. “He comes from the neighbourhood of the Cross-roads. What letters could he have to hand over?”
And he began to dress, wondering vaguely.
Stamps had spent a sleepless night. He could not sleep because his last interview with Linthicum had driven him hard, even though he had been able to promise him the required five hundred dollars; he also could not sleep because the air of the city had been full of talk about the promising outlook of the De Willoughby claim. Over the reports he had heard, he had raged almost with tears.
“The Dwillerbys is ristycrats,” he had said. “They’re ristycrats, an’ it gives ’em a pull even if they was rebels an’ Southerners. A pore man ez works hard an’ ain’t nothin’ but a honest farmer, an’ a sound Union man ain’t got no show. Ef I’d been a ristycrat I could hev got inflooence ez hed hev pulled wires fur me. But I hain’t nothin’ but my loyal Union principles. I ain’t no ristycrat, an’ I never aimed to be none.”
The bitterness of his nervous envy would have kept him awake if he had had no other reason for being disturbed, but most of all he was sleepless, because he was desperately ill and in danger he knew nothing of. Cold and weeks of semi-starvation, anxiety, excitement, and drenched garments had done the little man to death, and he lay raging with fever and stabbed with pain at each indrawn breath, tossing and gasping and burning, but thinking only of Linthicum and the herds and the scraps of paper which were to bring him five hundred dollars. He was physically wretched, but even while he was racked with agonised fits of coughing and prostrated with pain it did not occur to him to think that he was in danger. He was too wholly absorbed in other thoughts. The only danger he recognised was the danger that there might be some failure in his plans—that Linthicum might give him up—that the parson might back out of his bargain, realising that after all letters unsigned save by a man’s Christian name were not substantial evidence. Perhaps he would not come at all; perhaps he would leave the city; perhaps if he came he would refuse to give more than half or quarter the sum asked. Then Linthicum would throw him over—he knew Linthicum would throw him over. He uttered a small cry like a tortured cat.
“I know he’ll do it,” he said. “I seen it in his eye yesterday, when he let out on me an’ said he was a-gettin’ sick of the business. I shed hev kept my mouth shut. I’d said too much an’ it made him mad. He’ll throw me over Monday mornin’ ef I don’t take him the money on Sunday.”
He ate nothing all through the day but lay waiting for the passing of the hours. He had calculated as to which post would bring the letter from Minty. He had written to tell her of the hiding-place in which he had kept the bits of paper safe and dry through all the years. She was to enclose them in a stout envelope and send them to him.
Through the long, dragging day he lay alone burning, gasping, fighting for his breath in the attacks of coughing which seemed to tear his lungs asunder. There was a clock in a room below whose striking he could hear each hour. Between each time it struck he felt as if weeks elapsed. Sometimes it was months. He had begun to be light-headed and to think queer things. Once or twice he heard a man talking in a croaking wail, and after a few minutes realised that it was himself, and that he did not know what he had said, though he knew he had been arguing with Linthicum, who was proving to him that his claim was too rotten to have a ghost of a chance. By the time the afternoon post arrived he was semi-delirious and did not know how it happened that he at last found himself holding Minty’s letter in his hand. He laughed hysterically when he opened it. It was all right. There were the two yellowed sheets of paper—small sheets, written close, and in a peculiar hand. He had often studied the handwriting, and believed if he had seen it again he should know it. It was small but strong and characteristic, though that was not what he had called it.
“Ef I’d hed more time an’ could hev worked it out more—an’ got him to write suthin’ down—I could hev hed more of a hold,” he said, plaintively, “but Linthicum wouldn’t give me no time.”
The post arrived earlier than he had expected it, and this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The waiting became too long, and as his fever increased he became insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie and listen for his visitor’s footsteps upon the stairs—to lie until seven o’clock—if he did not come till then, would be more than he could endure. That would give him too long to think over what Linthicum would do if the whole sum were not forthcoming—to think of the reasons why the parson might make up his mind to treat the letters as if they were worthless. He lay and gnawed his finger-nails anew.
“I wouldn’t give nothin’ for ’em ef I was in his place,” he muttered. “Ef thar’d been anythin’ in ’em that proved anythin’ I should hev used ’em long sence. But then I’m a business man an’ he’s a parson, an’ doesn’t know nothin’ about the laws. But he might go to some man—say a man like Linthicum—who could put him up to things. Good Lord!” in a new panic, “he mayn’t come at all. He might jest stay away.”
He became so overwrought by this agonising possibility that instead of listening for the striking of the clock, he began to listen for the sound of some passing footstep—the footstep of someone passing by chance who might be sent to the parson with a note. With intolerable effort and suffering he managed to drag himself up and get hold of a piece of paper and a pencil to write the following lines:
“The letters hes come. You’d as well come an’ get ’em. Others will pay for ’em ef ye don’t want ’em yerself.”
His writing of the last sentence cheered his spirits. It was a support to his small, ignorant cunning. “He’ll think someone else is biddin’ agen him,” he said. “Ef there was two of ’em biddin’, I could get most anythin’ I axed.”
After he had put the communication in an envelope he dragged himself to the door almost bent double by the stabbing pain in his side. Once there he sat down on the floor to listen for footsteps.
“It’s hard work this yere,” he panted, shivering with cold in spite of his fever, “but it’s better than a-lyin’ thar doin’ nothin’.”
At length he heard steps. They were the running, stamping feet of a boy who whistled as he came.
Stamps opened the door and whistled himself—a whistle of summons and appeal. The boy, who was on his way with a message to another room, hesitated a minute and then came forward, staring at the sight of the little, undressed, shivering man with his head thrust into the passage.
“Hallo!” he said, “what d’yer want?”
“Want ye to carry this yere letter to a man,” Stamps got out hoarsely. “I’ll give ye a quarter. Will ye do it?”
“Yes.” And he took both note and money, still staring at the abnormal object before him.
When the messenger arrived Latimer was reading the letters which had arrived by the last delivery. One of them was from Baird, announcing the hour of his return to the city. Latimer held it in his hand when Stamps’s communication was brought to him.
“Tell the messenger that I will come,” he said.
It was not long before Stamps heard his slow approach sounding upon the bare wooden stairs. He mounted the steps deliberately because he was thinking. He was thinking as he had thought on his way through the streets. In a few minutes he should be holding in his hand letters written by the man who had been Margery’s murderer—the letters she had hidden and clung to and sobbed over in the blackness of her nights. And they had been written twenty years ago, and Margery had changed to dust on the hillside under the pines. And nothing could be undone and nothing softened. But for the sake of the little old woman ending her days quietly in Willowfield—and for the sake of Margery’s memory—yes, he wanted to save the child’s memory—but for these things there would be no use in making any effort to secure the papers. Yet he was conscious of a dread of the moment when he should take them into his hand.
Stamps turned eager, miserable eyes upon him as he came in.
“I thought mebbe ye’d made up yer mind to let the other feller hev them,” he said. “Hev ye brought the money in bills?”
Latimer stood and looked down at him. “Do you know how ill you are?” he said.
“Wal, I guess I kin feel a right smart—but I don’t keer so’s things comes my way. Hev ye got the money with ye?”
“Whar’s the money?”
Latimer took out a pocket-book and opened it that he might see.
Stamps’s countenance relaxed. The tension was relieved.
“Thet’s far an’ squar,” he said. “D’ye wanter know whar I found ’em? Tom Dwillerby never knowed I hed more than a envelope—an’ I tuk care not to tell him the name that was writ on it. Ye was mighty smart never to let no one know yer name; I don’t know how you done it, ’ceptin’ that ye kept so much to yerselves.”
Latimer remained silent, merely standing and letting him talk, as he seemed to have a feverish, half-delirious tendency to do. He lay plucking at the scanty bed-covering and chuckling.
“’Twas five years arter the child was born,” he went on. “I was ridin’ through Blair’s Holler an’ it come to me sudden to go in an’ hev a look round keerful. I looked keerful—mighty keerful—an’ at last I went on my hands an’ knees an’ crawled round, an’ there was a hole between the logs, an’ I seen a bit of white—I couldn’t hev seen it ef I hadn’t been crawlin’ an’ looked up. An’ I dug it out. It hed been hid mighty secret.” He put his hand under his wretched pillow. “Give me the money,” he wheezed. “When ye lay it in my hand I’ll pass the envelope over to ye. Count it out first.”
Latimer counted the bills. This was the moment. Twenty years gone by—and nothing could be changed. He put the money on the bed.
Stamps withdrew his hand from under the pillow. A stout, ill-directed envelope was in its grasp and he passed it over to Latimer. He was shivering and beginning to choke a little, but he grinned.
“I reckin’ it’s all right,” he said. “D’ye want to read ’em now?”
“No,” Latimer answered, and putting them in his breast-pocket walked out of the room.
He passed down the stairs and into the avenue where the lamps were lighted and which wore its usual somewhat deserted evening air. He walked along quietly for some minutes. He did not quite know where he was going. Having left a line for Baird explaining his absence, he had time to spare. If he wished to be alone, he could be so until the hour of the beginning of the lecture. For certain reasons it would be necessary that he should see Baird before he went upon the platform. Yes, he must be alone. His mood required it. He would go somewhere and look at the two yellowed letters written twenty years ago. He did not know why it was that he felt he must look at them, but he knew he must. They would satisfy no curiosity if he felt it, and he had none. Perhaps it was the old tragic tender feeling for Margery which impelled him. Perhaps he unconsciously longed to read that this man had loved her—that she had not given her life for nothing—that the story had not been one of common caprice and common treachery. As he walked his varied thoughts surged through his brain disconnectedly. Every now and then he involuntarily put his hand to his breast-pocket to feel the envelope. Once there crossed his mind a memory of the woman whose boy had died and who dare not let herself recall him, and so be swept back into the black maelstrom of woe. To-night, with these things on his breast, it was not twenty years since he had heard Margery’s dying cries—it was last night—last night—and the odour of the pine-trees was in his nostrils—the sough of their boughs in his ears.
He stopped near the entrance to the grounds of the Smithsonian Institute. They were as secluded as a private park at this time, but here and there was a seat and a light. He turned in and found his way to the most retired part where he could find these things—a bench to sit down on, a light to aid him to read. He heard his own breathing as he sat down; he felt the heavy, rapid pulsations of his heart, as he took the papers from his breast his hand was shaking, he could not hold it still. He took out more papers than the envelope Stamps had given him. He drew forth with this the letter which had arrived from Baird, and which he had been reading when the messenger arrived. He had abstractedly put it in his pocket. It fell from his shaking hand upon the ground at his feet, and he let it lie there, forgetful of its existence.
Then he withdrew the two letters from the large envelope and opened one of them.
He read them through once—twice—three times—four. Then he began again. He had read them a dozen times before he closed them. He had read them word by word, poring over each character, each turn of phrase, as a man might pore over an enigma or a document written in a foreign language of which he only knew stray words. If his hands had shaken at first, he had not turned a page before his whole body was shaking and his palms, his forehead, his hair were damp with cold dew. He had uttered one sharp, convulsed exclamation like a suffocated cry—then he went on reading—reading—reading—and shuddering as he read. They were not long letters, but after he had read them once he understood them, and each time he read them again he understood them better. Yes, he could translate them. They were the farewells of a man tossed by a whirlwind of passionate remorseful grief. The child had been loved—her very purity had been loved while she had been destroyed and deceived. The writer poured forth heart-sick longing and heart-sick remorse. He had not at first meant to conceal from her that he was not a free man—then he had lost control over his very being—and he had lost his soul. When she had discovered the truth and had not even reproached him but had stood silent—without a word—and gazed at him with her childish, agonised, blue-flower eyes—he had known that if men had souls his was damned. There was no pardon—he could ask none—pardon would not undo—death itself would not undo what he had done. “Margery! Margery! Oh! child—God hear me if there is God to hear—I loved you—I love you—Death will not undo that either.”
He was going abroad to join his wife. He spoke of the ship he sailed on. Latimer knew its name and who had sailed in it. In the second letter he besought her to let him see and speak one word to her—but knew she would not grant his prayer. He had seen her in the street, and had not dared to approach. “I did not fear what a man might fear from other women,” he wrote. “I felt that it might kill you, suddenly to see me near when you could not escape.”
And after he had read it a third time Latimer realised a ghastly truth. The man who wrote had gone away unknowing of the blackness of the tragedy he had left behind. He plainly had not known the secret Death itself had helped to hide. Perhaps when he had gone Margery herself had not known the worst.
Latimer, having finished his reading, rested his head on his hand for a dull moment and stared down at the letter lying upon the ground at his feet—the letter he had dropped as he took out the others. He felt as if he had not strength or inclination to pick it up—he had passed through a black storm which had swept away from him the power to feel more than a dull, heavy, physical prostration.
But after a few minutes he stooped and picked the letter up. He laid it on his knee by the other two and sat gazing again.
“He did not know,” he said, in a colourless voice. “I told him. He heard it first from me when I told him how she died.”
The handwriting of the letters was Baird’s—every character and word and phrase were his—Baird was the man who had written them.